Heaven First
by ObsessedRomantic
Summary: Some thoughts that might have been going through Ryan's head during the early parts of 'The Gamble'.


**HEAVEN FIRST **

**Disclaimer: **They still won't let me have it, darn it. Just writing for fun and feedback, so please don't sue.

**Summary: ** Short one-shot about some thoughts that might have gone through Ryan's mind in 'The Gamble'.

**A/N: ** Not an AU, not RT, not even a multi-chapter. I know, what's gotten into me? Blame Sarge Heretic, she provided the inspiration for this. Well, her and Waltzy's 'you should do a missing scene' crap. So blame them that this isn't the next chapter of Innocent or This is School. :P

--xxx—

Ryan Atwood was wicked.

I mean, I must be, right? Anyone else would be happy just to be out of Juvie, no matter how temporary that escape would turn out to be. I had a room almost as big as my last **house,** all to myself; with a bed that I didn't have to share, a bathroom with an actual door and permission to use all the hot water I wanted. Dinner hadn't been half-bad, either; uncomfortable silences aside. So I was doing pretty well, considering, and you'd think I'd be grateful.

I wasn't though. Well, maybe a little; but mostly I was jealous. And pissed. And really, really depressed.

Because I _wanted_ this life, this **home**, and it didn't look like I was gonna get it. No matter what I did, what apologies I made, my future didn't include this place, these people, and I was starting to wish I'd never met them. Any of them.

I'd never have had to feel this bite of shame, if they'd assigned me some heartless paper-shuffler instead of Sandy Cohen. The look in his eyes when I showed up to take the rap for the fire still cut into me, despite his joking manner at Juvie. All the wishing in the world wouldn't make him my father, though, and it wouldn't make him drop the effort to find Dawn. He'd hand me back into the world I could now see for the hell it was, and I'd be right back where I'd been when I'd rolled the dice with that phone call.

Shit, I should've tried Theresa's one last time. She'd been mad about some girl I'd hooked up with, earlier that week, but she always loved to forgive me. She loved the intensity of make-up sex, actually. I should've groveled to her a little more; I could be having sex right now, instead of trying not to cry.

Marissa had cried, when I rejected her; guess she didn't understand that it wasn't really about her, my saying 'no'. How could I stand to leave, if we got that close? I didn't want to leave in the **first** place, but my options had been limited, and I hadn't wanted to use her like that, to make her first time something cheap and ugly. She deserved better, better than me, better than Luke, just………better.

Better, like Seth thought everything would be when his Mom was moved by pity to bring me home. She'd literally saved my life, doing that, but it wasn't gonna turn out like her son thought. The moment my mother was found, I'd go back to Chino and guys like Eddie and 'Turo (and Trey) who were only interested in how useful I could be, not in being my friend. Every time I looked at him, I had to fight down this powerful surge of envy, this stupid desire to **be** him, to have his life, to be a part of his family.

And what was he gonna do without me around to look after him? He was on the radar of guys like Luke, now; and I if I knew the type, they wouldn't be able to resist showing him 'his place' the minute I wasn't around to protect him. Is this what Trey had felt (before he stopped caring, anyway); this gnawing concern about what would happen next week, or next month, when Seth stepped over some bully's imagined line? I reminded myself that I wasn't his brother, let alone his **big** brother, and that his mother seemed more than capable of keeping him in line. It didn't help.

She should've just **left** me, I thought bitterly, rolling over under the comfortable sheets, curling around a pillow. My own mother had found it so easy to leave me, why couldn't this stranger do the same? Was it the lack of booze that made her so different, that made her capable of caring about the people around her, including some juvenile delinquent she didn't even **like**? She was wrong about me, so wrong, because I did know what I wanted.

I wanted to stay.

Simple as that, I wanted to stay here and prove to Sandy that I was worthy of his trust. I wanted to stay and see if I could become the better man Marissa deserved. I wanted to stay and be a brother to Seth, to protect him the way no one had ever protected me. I wanted to stay and show Kirsten that I was good enough to be someone's son. I wanted to stay among these beautiful buildings and have the life I'd stopped dreaming about years ago.

It was impossible, I knew, but I still **wanted** it. Like sleep. I wanted to sleep, to run away from the ugliness of reality with just a few hours of unconsciousness. When I closed my eyes, though, all I saw was that empty house, the note written in lipstick; the familiar sights of a life I couldn't possibly deserve, not really. I mean, I hadn't lived long enough to do the anything that would make such a future mine, so I just had to wicked by my very nature, right?

Because it was only the truly wicked that got a tour of heaven first, before being sent to hell.


End file.
